Love Someone

They called him the Serpent.

Because of a single whisper that unmade the world.

Eons ago, the Serpent leaned close to a trembling woman, her hand hovering over a fruit she had been told to fear. Her name was Eve.

The Serpent did not command her, nor force her. He merely asked: Wouldn’t you like to be free?

In the very beginning, the creator forged humanity as a vessel for seven sacred virtues: humility, charity, chastity, gratitude, temperance, patience, and diligence. 

But when Eve tasted the fruit from the forbidden tree, something fractured. From that single act, seven shadows were cast into the world: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Thus, for every virtue given, a sin was born to oppose it.

One bite, and the sky split open. Father’s fury roared like thunder, and his judgment fell on me faster than I could breathe.

Exile. A prison of beauty so cruel it mocked me.

It has been my cage for longer than mortals have named their centuries. I stopped counting after the first thousand years. Time here is measured in silences. The silence of footsteps that are always only mine.

Sometimes, I dreamed of the world outside. I imagined kingdoms rising, crumbling, and rising again. I imagined men shaping cities out of stone and steel. But it was all guesswork. I had only Haneul's stories and ramblings to go off of.

The first time I saw her, I thought she was a hallucination.

Days became weeks, and weeks became… whatever time pretended to be in this place. She returned, again and again, as if the Garden itself had bent its laws for her alone.

At first, I distrusted her. Who wouldn’t? An intruder in a prison where even most angels were forbidden to tread. She must have been a trick, I thought. A punishment wrapped in kindness.

But she was persistent. She asked me questions, small things, as though testing the waters.
What do you do all day?
Why don’t you get tired of circling the same path?
Do you hate your father for what He did to you?

I answered her with curt replies, or silence. But she never stopped asking. She wanted to know me.

And the strangest thing was I found myself wanting her to.

One evening, she sat with me by the pool of still water at the Garden’s center. The stars overhead never diverged from their tracks. She dipped her hand into the reflection, scattering the constellations.

“You don’t seem like the creature they say you are,” she murmured.

I laughed. “They call me a sinner. Deceiver. Do you think I earned that name?”

She tilted her head, studying me with unnerving calm. “Did you lie to her?”

I looked away. “Eve? No, I just wanted her to be free.”

“Then I don't think you're a deceiver,” she said softly. “Maybe you were the only one who told the truth.”

I clenched my fists. The words stung, not because they were cruel, but maybe because they were merciful. And I wasn't sure what to do with mercy.

Father created humans as lesser beings, ones without the divine knowledge of the heavens. Perhaps I was wrong to think humans deserved any more than that. 

Since then, she pressed harder.

“Why did you do it? Why tempt her?”

“Because I wanted her to see. To choose.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you wish someone would choose you?”

I froze. The question was too sharp, and too bare. I masked it with anger. “That doesn’t matter. My fate is already carved.”

But her gaze lingered, steady as a flame.The Garden’s silence weighed less when she was there. Sometimes she would hum simple, wordless tunes that wrapped around me like warmth. Sometimes she would teach me the languages humans spoke in the world beneath, carving alphabets and writings into the soil and the dirt.

It all sounded like myth to me.

“Your world,” I said once, “it seems brighter than the one I knew.”

She smiled at that. “It’s far from perfect. But maybe it's one worth seeing again.”

I told myself not to trust her. That she was a dream, a mirage, a punishment in disguise. But each time I saw her, the Garden’s chains felt looser.

One evening, she leaned closer than usual, her hand brushing mine. The stars drifted along their tracks, the stream never changing its path.

“You’ve been here so long,” she whispered. “Too long.”

“That’s the sentence,” I muttered.

“Maybe sentences can be broken.”

Impossible. No one breaks Father’s will. And yet, the way she said it was not a threat.

I didn't  understand what she planned. But I saw a softness in her eyes. One that belonged only to her.

For the first time in eons, I felt fear. Not of punishment, but a fear of hope.

Her eyes were too close.

Her hand lingered against mine, light as air but heavy as fate.

The Garden seemed to still around us. The eternal night hushed its breath, as if waiting for my answer.

I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that no one escaped Father’s judgment, least of all me. But when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.

Her gaze didn’t waver.

We sat there, silence stretching between us, until finally she spoke.

“You didn’t want to hurt anyone, did you?”

“No.” My voice was hoarse, fragile. “I only wanted them to see. To choose for themselves.”

“Then why does He still call it a sin?”

I laughed bitterly. “Because He cannot bear to be questioned.”

For a moment, I expected lightning, fire, some holy retribution for speaking so plainly. None came. The Garden remained silent.

She leaned closer, whisper-soft. “Then maybe it isn’t a sin at all.”

The words pierced deeper than any blade. I stared at her, and for the first time in an eternity, I felt myself believed. Not condemned. Not defined by the whisper that ruined me. Simply… understood.

Days blurred together after that. She visited more often, spoke longer, pressed harder. She wanted to know everything about my fall, my doubts, my solitude.

And I let her.

Her questions wore away the walls I had built. Each time I revealed something, I felt lighter, as though chains I had forgotten I carried were loosening.

But there was something dangerous building between us, too. Something I dared not name.

One evening, the still waters mirrored us side by side. Her reflection leaned in closer than she dared in reality. I watched, unable to look away.

“Naga, do you like being with me?” she asked suddenly.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

She smiled. “That’s better than no.”

The audacity of her. To look at me as though I was worth something.

I tried to fight it. Truly, I did.

But her laughter lingered in my chest. Her eyes haunted me when she left. And each time she returned, I swore I would not let her come closer, only to find myself speaking more freely, watching her more intently and leaning closer than I realized.

One night, I broke.

“Why do you keep coming back?” I asked.

Her reply was immediate, unshaken. “Because you’re not what they say you are.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I do,” she said simply. “I see it every time I look at you.”

Her certainty unraveled me.

The Garden itself seemed to sense it. The air grew taut, charged. The stars above flickered faintly for the first time in eons, as if bracing.

She noticed too. “Something might change.”

“No,” I muttered, though my chest burned. “Nothing changes here.”

Her hand brushed mine again, deliberate this time. “Maybe it’s time something did.”

We were too close now. Her breath was on my skin, her eyes holding me fast.

“You don’t deserve this prison,” she whispered.

“And what do I deserve?” I asked, my voice trembling despite myself.

She didn’t answer with words.

She leaned in and kissed me.

Her lips pressed against mine, and the Garden shuddered. The stars bled light, streaking into dust. The trees trembled, their blossoms scattering like sparks.

The seal was breaking.

I knew it. She must have known it too. But she didn’t let go.

Neither did I.

And then…

Light.

The Garden fractured, peeling away into ribbons of glowing dust. My body felt weightless, torn from the only world I had known for an eternity. Her hand slipped from mine, her voice becoming a fading echo.

“Love someone.”

And then there was darkness.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on cold stone. Not the familiar marble of the Garden, but rough, cracked pavement.

A roar thundered overhead, not thunder, but something mechanical. I sat up too fast, my head spinning, and stared.

Lights blazed from glass towers that stabbed the night sky. Metal vehicles roared along endless roads, their glowing eyes cutting through the dark. Humans moved in swarms, shouting into strange glowing slabs in their hands, barely noticing me.

The air stank of smoke and steel.

I staggered to my feet, heart pounding. None of this was the world she had spoken of. This was something else. Something far beyond.

I turned in circles, stunned, desperate for something familiar. But there was nothing.

Nothing but this alien city of stone and light.

Los Angeles.

That was what the sign read.

And I, the serpent, was thrust into this strange human world.